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''In demanding equality and freedom for all the residents of historic Palestine, it is the opponents of Israel, not its supporters, who carry the torch of history's noble anti-racist struggles.

''The old ones are always the best. That, at least, seems to be the thinking from Israel's defenders, who are increasingly seeking to revive the claim that those appalled by Israeli violence are mostly cunningly disguised anti-Semites.

''This is less an argument than an effort to shut down argument. Its intended effect is to render criticism of Israel socially unacceptable even as Amnesty International accuses it of deliberately targeting and killing six health workers.

''History is not without parallels. Apartheid South Africa elicited a special horror from people all over the world even though many of its neighbours were also brutal regimes, because in South Africa suffering was deliberately perpetuated along racial lines.

''If Israel is singled out, it is usually because people hate occupation and discrimination, not because they hate Jews. If Israel's friends want to query this singling out, they should ask why people are more disgusted by racism than by other injustices (which might be a reasonable question, but could hardly be more different from the question they currently ask).

''Moreover, we in the West focus on Israel because our governments are implicated in its crimes. Israel is America's outpost in the Middle East, the two of them deeply intertwined in a common project of hostility to those who challenge their shared geopolitical interests. Hence Israel has received more American aid than any other country since World War II, and hence this Saturday's demonstration in solidarity with the people of Gaza will march past the American embassy ...

''Israel is exceptional because it proffers a racially defined conception of national sovereignty. Those of us who demand an equal and common right to self-determination for all the inhabitants of the area regardless of their religion have learnt our lessons from Nelson Mandela rather than from Apartheid. As Mandela knew too well, dismantling the infrastructure of a racially constituted state is no easy task but justice for its victims dictates that we do so.

''Among we Jewish opponents of Zionism, some would oppose it even if Golda Meir had been right when she claimed, "the Palestinians do not exist". We are opposed in principle to the separatist idea that the solution to the historic oppression of Jews is for Jews to withdraw from cosmopolitan societies and embrace their categorisation as racial Others by anti-Semites.

''Likewise we do not believe that the solution to sexism is the building of a nation-state exclusively for women. Standing in the long tradition of Jewish radicalism, we see the solution to anti-Semitism in the struggle to build societies free of racism, just as we should fight sexism rather than abandoning that fight and encouraging women to pack their bags for a land free of men. Opposing Jewish nationalism by no means entails supporting the persecution of Jews.

''There is a lunatic fringe of people who oppose Israel out of a hatred of Jews, but the state's daily crimes – the UN now estimates that it kills a child every hour in Gaza – provide the much more common reason for protesting against it. In demanding equality and freedom for all the residents of historic Palestine, it is the opponents of Israel, not its supporters, who carry the torch of history's noble anti-racist struggles.''